Lines Blur Over Wife's Use of CEO's Jets

Shortly before a WNBA women's basketball playoff game in Indianapolis on Sept. 28, a Hawker 800XP jet owned by Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. of Atlanta arrived at the Indianapolis airport, federal flight records show.

The Atlanta Dream—a team co-owned by Mary Brock, who is married to CCE's chief executive—was facing the local Indiana Fever. Less than an hour after the game ended in a victory for her team, the CCE jet departed for its Atlanta base.

A Wall Street Journal review of flight records found that on at least 15 dates over the past two years when the Atlanta Dream was playing distant road games, CCE jets flew to the locations where the games were being played. The flights were to seven different cities. On several occasions, two CCE jets arrived around game times, according to records from the Federal Aviation Administration and Flightwise.com, a flight-tracking website.

Ms. Brock confirmed that she has flown to Atlanta Dream games aboard CCE jets, but said it was always with her husband, John Brock, and "only if it fits in with what John's doing." She added that the "only way that would happen is, my husband has to go to New York, and…if there's an Atlanta Dream-[New York] Liberty game, we can fit that in."

Ms. Brock wouldn't discuss any specific trips. She said she didn't know how the flight costs were allocated, but said "in today's world there's not going to be any abuse."

A spokesman for CCE didn't respond to questions about specific flights around Atlanta Dream games, including whether they were counted as business or personal trips. The company's business is in Europe, where it is a major Coca-Cola bottler, and its operations there account for all its revenue. CCE and Coca-Cola Co. are separate public companies with different management teams.

ENLARGE

The CCE spokesman said in a statement that Mr. Brock is required to fly on a company plane for all business and personal travel "and reimburses the company a significant portion of his personal-use costs." He added: "The costs associated with traveling to any sporting event on a personal basis, including all Atlanta Dream games, are covered by such reimbursements. When Mr. Brock's spouse travels on a company plane, such travel is always treated as personal, regardless of the purpose of the travel."

According to CCE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Brock and other officers who travel on its jets are supposed to reimburse the company for "certain types of personal travel," which it doesn't specify. The filings show that in 2011 it cost CCE $199,000 to provide Mr. Brock with personal flights for which he didn't reimburse the company; CCE didn't say how much Mr. Brock did reimburse for personal flights that year.

The other co-owner of the Atlanta Dream is Kelly Loeffler, who is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, the CEO of another Atlanta-based public company, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. ICE owns financial futures exchanges in the U.S., Europe and Canada. ICE's corporate jet, a Gulfstream V it bought late last year, made two trips to cities on the same days as Atlanta Dream away games there.

Ms. Loeffler, who also is ICE's vice president of investor relations and corporate communications, didn't return multiple calls. Mr. Sprecher didn't respond to a call seeking comment. Mr. Sprecher didn't make any personal use of company aircraft in 2011, but in early 2012 ICE's board authorized a new policy that allows up to $75,000 in expenses associated with personal-aircraft use by Mr. Sprecher, according to the company's filings.

Tonya Alleyne, an Atlanta Dream spokeswoman, confirmed that the team's owners sometimes attend away games, but said she hasn't known them to travel with the players, who must use commercial airlines under league rules. "How they travel I am not privy to," she said.

Personal use of company jets is a perquisite for top executives at many companies. These companies often cite the benefit as a security measure or a time saver for busy executives.

Amid criticism from some shareholder activists, the number of companies offering this perk has declined in recent years. Many companies have banned personal travel on corporate jets or have started requiring executives to reimburse for some or all of the associated costs. A survey released last month by Equilar Inc., which tracks executive compensation, found that 60% of Fortune 100 companies provided the perk in 2011, down from 79% in 2008.

Using a company jet to attend games for a sports team owned by the CEO's spouse "would not be an appropriate use of corporate assets from an investor's standpoint," said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, who has served as a director of several public companies.

Established in 1996 as an offshoot of the National Basketball Association, the WNBA has a dozen teams. Ms. Loeffler and Ms. Brock first invested in the Atlanta team in early 2011, and later that year took full control. Ms. Brock said she is proud that the league inspires young girls to be athletic, but said the team has yet to break even under her ownership.

It isn't clear what kind of business relationship ICE has with CCE, but Ms. Brock and Ms. Loeffler's husbands have access to some of the same aircraft. A February 2012 SEC filing by ICE listed several aircraft that are available to its CEO, Mr. Sprecher, including four jets operated by CCE. The CCE spokesman said his company has aircraft-sharing arrangements with three companies, but he declined to say if ICE was one of them.

The Atlanta Dream made the playoffs in 2011 and 2012, and in both years CCE jets landed in the opponents' home cities on the dates of playoff games. The locations were places, such as Indianapolis and Minneapolis, where the jets didn't normally land, other than around WNBA games.

"Once our teams get into the playoffs, there is definitely an incentive for us to try to be there and support them," Ms. Brock said. She added that her husband and Mr. Sprecher are "part of the same aviation department," and that "if they can work in something they're doing from a business perspective, we try to make that work."

One frequent stop for CCE jets has been the small Groton-New London airport, in southeastern Connecticut. The airport is 15 miles from the Mohegan Sun Arena, home to the WNBA's Connecticut Sun. All the trips there in 2011 and 2012 were on the same days as Atlanta Dream-Connecticut Sun games.

On Sunday Sept. 23, the Atlanta Dream visited Connecticut for the final regular game of the 2012 season. That day, a Gulfstream V owned by CCE took off from Atlanta for Groton, landing 90 minutes before the 5 p.m. game. A smaller Hawker 800XP owned by CCE also flew from Atlanta to Groton, with a brief stop in Athens, Ga., landing while the game was in progress.

The estimated combined cost of those two one-way flights was more than $13,000, based on average hourly operating costs for those aircraft provided by Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information.

Soon after the game, won by the Sun, the two jets took off 21 minutes apart, flight records show. The larger Gulfstream V headed to Edinburgh, Scotland, while the smaller jet returned to Atlanta.

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